Making AI contact: Can artificial intelligence help aspiring cartoonist achieve his vision?
In my case, it was all fantasy. I was in the bottom quartile — probably decile — of cartoonists. Gracing the pages of the New Yorker was as realistic as being drafted by the Golden State Warriors because Steph Curry saw me playing horse at the playground in the Presidio.
But just in time for its 100th year, there was a cosmic shift in the universe. Generative AI had arrived and with it came a new and startling possibility.
Could a cartoonist with middling skills in the drawing department, transform his game to play in the biggest of leagues, just by typing a prompt into the program and seeing what it generated?
For me cartooning was something of an accident. In 2014, I wrote a Young Adult novel and the publisher agreed that illustrations would be a good addition. I approached a friend who is an artist and asked if she would illustrate the book. She did, and both the publisher and I loved the result.
But in the process of working with the artist, I was struck by how hard it was to explain in words — even for one who has spent his life working in that medium — how something should look.
